The second Rugrats movie has the distinction of being decent just
because it is not horrible. Most animated movies released today may have
great animation, but questionable story quality, and seem more concerned
with profits and commercial tie-ins than actual entertainment. Rugrats
is already an established enterprise, and already has a built in audience.
It is a safe assumption that the rest of the world will not care about
this movie. Still, it is fairly charming in the strange, Rugrats
way. At less than ninety minutes, Rugrats in Paris is short enough
to hold the attention span of most of its core audience. For children
who squirm even more than that, there are frequent random outbursts of
song (including the ubiquitous Who Let the Dogs Out by the Baha
Men) and the trademark potty humor.

As with most other animated fare, children may enjoy this while adults
will most likely be bored. The story revolves around a trip to Paris where
Chuckie (Christine Cavanaugh) is looking for a wife for his father. David
N. Weiss, David Stern, Barbara Herndon, J. David Stern, Jill Gorey, and
Kate Boutilier, many of them writers for Rugrats series, do a fair
job of translating their property to the big screen. The action takes
place at Reptarland, an obvious riff on Disneyland. Rugrats in Paris
also takes friendly potshots at King Kong, Jurassic Park, Lady and
the Tramp, A Few Good Men, Godzilla, The Godfather, and many other
movies. These jokes clearly are for the adults, so they have something
to do before falling asleep. The non-stop potty humor and verbal gaffes
are also here, and, while mildly amusing, become tiring quickly.

Unlike most other children's films, Rugrats in Paris has a definite
clear lesson for children. It's nice to see a movie try to better children,
and it's even better when it fits nicely into the story and does not appear
out of place. Directors Stig Bergqvist and Paul Deyemer provide a nice
moral and closure to a story that will also neatly fit into the regular
series. Coco La Bouche (Susan Sarandon, Cradle
Will Rock, Anywhere But Here)
owns Reptarland, and she is a mean woman. She wants a promotion, but will
only get it if she has a family, so she schemes to marry Chuckie's dad
Chas. Chuckie and the rest of the gang dislike her, preferring her assistant
Kira (Julia Kato). Chuckie notices that everybody else has a mother, and
he does not. He feels he is missing something from his life, and this
depresses him. So off goes Chuckie in search of the perfect mother for
him, with the Angelica, Phil and Lil, Tommy, and the rest of the Rugrats
gang in tow. Children (small children) will undoubtedly love this movie
regardless of what anybody says, so oh well.